Fund watch: Get ready for a surge in Japan-themed stock funds Wednesday. The Nikkei Stock Average rallied 3.8% after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said he’d step down a few weeks prior to the end of his term. Investors read this as a sign of more aggressive stimulus measures. The yen-neutral WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (DXJ) is ahead by 0.8% in light premarket trading and the unhedged iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) is up by 0.5%. The CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY) is down a fraction.

In the news: Investment News’ Jason Kephart reports that Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, is stepping down and the coiner of the “BRIC” acronym for Brazil, Russia India and China, is stepping down.

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